Bring Best Practice to Mobile

Game Development
WANG Xu
Producer @ Ubisoft ShangHai

Title
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level

Third level

Fourth level
Fifth level

Multi-Platforms Development

Mobile Development Will Not Discussed

India Game Development
Game directly ported from its Web/SNS ver
sion
Re-skinned, straight copying games
Pirate games
Practice of bringing social elements to mobi
le game

Lets try to tell Some Difference

Tools and Pipeline

Production Value
Design and Production Focus
Design Iteration
Management and Communication Overhea
d

Difference Tools and Pipeline

Relatively speaking, mobile games enjoy be
tter tools
Console game spare no effort on pushing pi
peline to their limits

Difference Tools and Pipeline

Difference Production Value

Story

Atmosph
ere

Characters

Unique
Flavor

Epic
Moments

Rewards

Buzz

Polish

Difference Design and Production Focus

Mobile

Creativity games(idea) still dominate the dashboards.

Game balance works as barrier of new comers thus is
the priority
Flexible and agile design/production process

Difference Design and Production Focus

Console/PC/Handheld games

Systematic the game design, game loop, game mecha

nism game flow
Try to find the recipe of creativity and innovation.
Give enough focus to 3C, sign and feedback.
Heavy design/production validation process.

Difference Design Iteration

We received professional playtest report.
Its easier to hand over a iPhone to somebo
dy to get his opinion.

Difference Design Iteration

Be rational to the feedbacks

Difference Communication Overhead

Agile but Scrum?

Bring Best Practice to Mobile Game Dev

Tools and Pipelines

Design Methodology
Motivation is more important

Best Practice Tools and Pipeline

Keep checking and improving the pipeline
make sure nobody in the team will need to w
ait for another people if he wanted to see his
modification in the version.

Best Practice Tools and Pipeline

Automate the version checking and making

process.
Everyone in the team should be able to dow
nload the most recent version (the CL 5 minu
tes ago included) to his mobile phone throug
h WiFi.

Bring Best Practice to Mobile Game Dev

Tools and Pipelines

Design Methodology
Motivation is more important

Design Methodology Perspective

Keep the practice of designing the core gam
e play for First Playable Presentation (aka. ve
rtical slice)
For F2P game, always review it from the per
spective of 1 st 30 minutes player experience.

Design Methodology Validation

Strive for a lightweight design validation pr
ocess, but to play fair, you have to convince t
hem with something playable every 2 weeks
at least

Design Methodology Stages

Still there are the stages of

Concept
Pre-Production
Production
Launch/Soft Launch
Post Launch

Design Methodology Concept

Prototype (e.g., with Flash).

Design Methodology Concept

Prototype

Design Methodology Concept

Prototype.
Know the game engine.

Design Methodology Pre Production

Give enough focus to Control, Camera and Ch

aracter, Sign and Feedback.

Design Methodology Pre Production

Insist to have reviewable version everyday.
Insist to make it real data driven at least fo
r top 2 more important features
Never believe a feature will be polished/gra
phic will be good/FPS will be improved but o
nly in last month.

Design Methodology
Play tests dont always tell the truth.

GPP
GPP
Design
Design
er
er
Playtes
Playtes
tt team
team

Integrat
Integrat
e
e Tags
Tags
Design
Design
Intenti
Intenti
on
on

Test
Test
Instrume
Instrume
nts
nts
Results
Results

Survey
Survey
Observat
Observat
ion
ion
Grid
Grid

Playtest
Playtest
s
s

Results
Results
Analysi
Analysi
s
s

Design Methodology

Design Methodology Production/soft launch

Keep thinking of prioritizing and ready to cut f
eatures

Bring Best Practice to Mobile Game Dev

Tools and Pipelines

Design Methodology
Motivation is more important

Best Practice Motivation Still Works

For mobile project

Clear objective
Everybody understand and agree with it
Build the communication, everybody contribute their
idea on game design.

Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation (on TED)

Q&A
WANG Xu
Producer Ubisoft ShangHai
xu.wang@ubisoft.com